Sucks to Suck – Chapter 17

Marion watched as Isabella swiped on her tablet on the floor of the abandoned apartment, kneeling in front of a piece of old and mouldy carpet that they had just cut and ripped from the floor with the aid of a kitchen knife. The utilities had been shut off for the derelict low-density apartment block in the low 1900s of East Saint John Street, so they brought in a battery-operated lantern, and Marion held it above Isabella as the woman copied the glyphs and other markings that appeared on her tablet’s screen, as she flicked the pages of a digital copy of some ancient book.

“Does this even work?” Marion asked as Isabella used a permanent marker to copy the intricate inscriptions, sometimes using fingers to spin the image on the book around and zoom into it to make sure she got every detail right.

“The spell? I never tried it before…”

“No, I mean… Having a scan of a spell book instead of the real thing.”

“Well, for one, I prefer the term grimoire but yes, it does work… What has power is the symbols, not the book. The book is just a recording.”

“Really?”

Isabella stopped what she was doing for a moment, and moved her hand to grab on Marion’s wrist to guide the lantern up. Marion suppressed a grunt of pain, but not a wince as Isabella touched her right where the silver manacles had burned her skin. Isabella blushed and moved her hand further down Marion’s arm to guide it up. She offered an apologetic smile and then shifted back to her work.

“In practice, yes, but… There’s more nuance. A real grimoire which was used by a real witch before will always have a power of its own. But for the sake of copying spells, they can be written anywhere, as long as you can see them clearly, it can be a digital copy or printed or whatever…”

“If I scanned the book and printed a spell circle, it would work?”

“No,” Isabella said categorically, without lifting her head. “The act of copying matters, too. There has to be an intention behind it. Machines don’t have intention… For now.”

“For now?”

Isabella must’ve decided that it wasn’t worth explaining her concerns regarding the future of technology and its connection with magic, and instead, she looked up at Marion for a second and offered a shrug before continuing her work. The vampire had sincere doubts about what they were doing, but that Hail Mary was a better plan than anything she could come up with. She was worried that it might not work, and they might end up wasting another night and be no closer to finding Skye before Skye found them. But she also worried that it would work. Because if it did, that meant facing Skye again, and this time she was surely not going to give Marion any chance of escaping. Marion knew that she wouldn’t if she was in the place of the tall lanky vampire.

The preparations ended up taking a little over an hour. Marion and Isabella had placed a few decoy traps and binding circles around the apartment complex, trusting that a hunter as skilled as Skye would find them. If she found no traps, she would be suspicious, and perhaps very cautious. The only way to get someone like her to fall into a trap was if she did so in an attempt to dodge an existing one. At least that was Isabella’s theory, and Marion didn’t really feel like she had enough information to refute it. Besides, the idea of additional layers of protection, even if mostly ineffective, was of some mild comfort to Marion.

Once Isabella was done placing the circle of binding on the floor, she swiped the pages of her digital grimoire to find another spell, and within the circle she inscribed another sigil, placing it within a smaller circle and connecting it with a line to the edge of the larger one. And then, she reached for one of many supplies the girls had brought in Isabella’s black Jansport; a bottle of lighter fluid. Isabella gave the permanent marker some time to dry before spilling the fluid all around the edges of the circle and lowering the carpet over it, concealing the final trap.

“This seems a bit too simple to catch someone like her…” Marion commented a bit uncomfortable at the state of the trap once it was finished.

“I think it will work,” Isabella said with confidence but her voice deflated slightly as she added, “I hope so, at least…”

And with that very reassuring note, they moved to the final touches. Candles were placed around the room, and Isabella placed a piece of black fabric in a bowl, alongside a small bird skull, dried leaves and a single black feather. As she carefully and deliberately placed those ingredients, or components, or whatever one ought to call the materials necessary for a spell, Marion brought her hand to her stomach and she felt the spot on her cat hoodie where the fabric had been cut. Rosalinda had done her the kindness of sewing a dark purple fabric on top of it to cover the hole, but Marion still felt a strange sadness at knowing that a piece of the outfit that Logan seemed to like so much was irreparably damaged. Perhaps she was being foolish to worry about such things when they were about to invite a lion to come visit the gazelles, but she still couldn’t shake the feeling. The square piece of fabric had Skye’s blood on it, and it was a necessary sacrifice for the next step of their plan.

Isabella poured lighter fluid over the gathered items and pulled a glass flask from her purse, pointing to the ground next to where she was kneeling in a wordless direction for Marion to take that spot. And then she navigated on her tablet out of the spell book PDF and towards just a series of typed notes, which she scrolled up until she reached the bottom. A few practice reads, with her lips moving but the words not coming out, and she then nodded, to herself more than Marion, and turned around.

“I’m ready. Are you?”

“Yes, I’m ready,” Marion said, without any confidence that she was.

She was as ready as she could hope to be to face Skye again, she supposed. It would have to be enough. Isabella pulled a rolled-up piece of paper from her pocket and then signalled for Marion to bring up a lighter from her own. She flicked it open and the flame erupted. She held it in place as Isabella brought the folded piece of paper to the fire, and as it caught fire, she began to speak in a language that Marion didn’t understand. It didn’t sound like Latin or Greek, though Marion didn’t speak those tongues well enough to be sure. Isabella muttered a phrase and dropped the paper into the spell bowl.

Fire erupted, and the smell of burning fuel and fabric immediately filled the room, as Isabella opened the clear flask and poured some fine dust in her palm. She uttered another phrase, which sounded very similar to the first one, and then she held her hand over the fire and opened it, dropping the dust into the flames. They burned bright and green, rising into the air for a second, almost forming a mushroom before gradually returning to their yellow colour.

“Skye,” Isabella said.

“Skye,” Marion echoed, knowing at least her place in the ritual.

And then they watched the fire burn. It was rather anti-climatic. Marion expected something more than flames merely changing colour. Instead, she just watched the fire burn, and burn, until there was nothing but ash and residue of burned synthetic fibres. 

“Did it… Work?” Marion asked a solid minute after the flames were done burning.

“It must have,” Isabella responded.

“What? You don’t know if it worked?”

“No, not really. That’s not how…”

“Don’t tell me that’s not how magic works.”

“It just isn’t…”

“So… What now? She’ll feel compelled to come here? I was expecting her to appear in a puff of smoke.”

“No, no… Nothing that dramatic,” Isabella explained.

“Then… How does this work? How does she get here?”

“Probability. Causality,” Isabella said.

“I don’t understand…”

“Think of magic like water… It flows and finds the path of least resistance. Reality resists it, so it will always try to act upon the world in the way that modifies reality the least…”

“I am not sure if I understand what that means.”

“If I cast a spell to burn down your house, there won’t be a spontaneous fireball erupting from your living room… But there’s always a chance, however small, that your house will burn down. Gas leak, misplaced candle, electrical fault… Lightning, if the gods are feeling capricious. When the spell is cast, magic will flow and… Whatever needs to happen will happen for your house to burn down.”

Marion lifted an eyebrow at the explanation. It was difficult to imagine what chain of likely events would lead Skye to come to them that night, but she had to trust that Isabella knew what she was doing; that she understood what she was talking about more than Marion did.

“So… When you opened the door to Skye’s car…”

“There was a chance the lock was never engaged in the first place,” Isabella concluded.

“But… The silver, you melted it.”

“Well, yes… That’s… Brute force.”

“Brute force?”

Isabella chuckled and shook her head.

“My mother doesn’t like the term but I learned it from a friend of mine that codes, you know, computer things…”

“Yeah, I know,” Marion lied.

“So… Sometimes there’s no path for reality to flow. Sometimes you want to do something that is, by all means, impossible,” Isabella explained. “Then you just gotta make the path.”

“That sounds like proper magic.”

“Well, it’s not. Brute forcing is dangerous.”

“How so?”

“Reality pushes back. Whenever you do something impossible, you are stretching reality, like a rubber band. And it pulls back, hard. If you are careful and you do something small and stretch it just a little bit, maybe it can slowly push back to form…”

“But if you don’t…?”

“This is theoretical, I never tried anything that big… My mother says I’m not ready and she’s likely right… But if you do something that warps it too much, or stretches it too far, and there are too many witnesses, or the change is permanent, then the snap back as reality tries to fix itself can be really violent. And it will try to take the path of least resistance too…”

“What does that mean?”

“Sometimes the easiest way to unwarp something that is warped is removing whatever is causing the warp…” Isabella said, pointing at herself.

Marion considered the words as she felt her tongue a little dry. The last time she had eaten her fill had been at the club, a couple of nights before… And while she could go another four days perhaps without drinking again, five or six if she felt like pushing herself, two nights was enough for her skin to start to feel cold, her heart to barely beat and she would sometimes stop breathing for long moments. She had to remember to mimic in the presence of those who didn’t know about her condition. After she - or Raven - had tasted the girl at the club, she felt like her tolerance for hunger had weakened. Or perhaps it was just that she didn’t spend that much time near a mortal normally.

Her eyes went to Isabella’s neck, and even in the dim light, her vision was sharp enough to see the pulse under her skin. Right under her ear, that slight diagonal line teased her, throbbing with life, rich in blood. Marion wondered if a witch’s blood tasted any different than a human’s. Were witches not human? She found herself wetting her lips with her tongue and her mouth was ajar as the witch focused on the corridor leading out of the living room of the abandoned apartment and towards the entrance.

Isabella was sweating a little, probably due to her nerves, but the feminine scent of her sweat rose like a warm cloud around her, and Marion could smell her skin and her blood in it. And that caused her to feel pressure coming from the front row of her teeth. Her fangs ached to come out and her mouth never felt drier. She wondered if Isabella would let her feed on her before Skye’s arrival; perhaps she could convince the girl to let her drink just a small amount, something she could recover from in a day. She could tell Isabella that the smallest uptick in her strength could be the difference between life and death if their containment didn’t work.

And then Marion caught herself running through excuses and rationalisations in her mind and she shut them down. She couldn’t bite Isabella. She couldn’t do it to someone she knew, and she especially couldn’t do that to someone so close to Logan. Even if the thought of laying Isabella on that old mouldy carpet and straddling her waist to sink fangs into her neck brought more than just hunger to Marion’s body. It brought a tingle across her chest and a warm pulse in the pit of her stomach. She could almost hear Isabella’s voice moaning in pain at the bite, and then of something else, seconds after. She could imagine how those hands would feel grabbing at her sides and pulling her close.

The Hunger was a terrible thing, Marion knew. It would whisper delicious promises or terrifying threats into one’s ear when it needed to be sated. It would pull on every string, appeal to every appetite, and call on every sense to drive one to feed. And Marion had been very hungry for very long, so many times. So, she knew how to identify that voice. How to recognise when her thoughts were not her own, but driven by pure, predatory instinct. And it didn’t make them any less tempting or powerful, but at least she was not caught unguarded by them. She would never allow herself to be a creature driven solely by the Hunger. Not after what she had seen in Mother’s home.

Marion looked away, towards the window, as Isabella nervously stared still into the remnants of her ritual, and she touched the edge of the bowl. Marion desperately needed a distraction. From the wait and from her own appetites too.

“So, we can’t know if it worked, can we?” Marion whispered.

“Not really… I think it did though.”

“How long do we wait to find out?”

“I’d say all night… My phone’s alarm is going to go off an hour before sunset. Should give us more than enough time to go home if it doesn’t work until then.”

“An hour…”

Marion considered the time. The ride home to Logan's was about 26 minutes and less than half that for Isabella’s place. In both, she could find some secure corner to ‘sleep’ away daylight. Even with some delays, one hour should be enough. It made her nervous, it felt like a tight schedule, even if it wasn’t. 

“I hope Logan’s okay…” Isabella said, idly.

Marion tilted her head. She had no idea why Logan would not be okay. They were doing this to keep Skye away from her, after all.

“Why would she not be?”

“I mean, what if that bitch goes to the same address and spots her?”

“How would she know Logan knows me?”

“I don’t know… Won’t your scent be on her?”

“My… Scent?” Marion frowned. “Why would she smell like me?”

“You live in her house!”

“I’m not a skunk,” Marion said, deadpan.

“That’s not what I’m saying, I’m s-“

Isabella stopped herself from the loud whispering abruptly. Marion didn’t need to ask the reason, because she had heard it too. The creaking from the door, as it opened slowly. It could be the wind, or an old door out of level escaping the frame as the chill of the night caused the wood to contract. Marion would’ve held her breath if she needed to breathe, and she could hear that Isabella was indeed holding hers as they stared fixedly towards the corridor that led to the front door. No sound, not even footsteps or the gentle scrape of a boot against the carpet. Not a creaky floorboard.

Marion felt a chill across her spine. It was too quiet, way too quiet. She could hear the candles hissing and the rain outside, and the muted drone of distant cars turning into white noise. But the idea that Skye could be moving this close to them and be so utterly quiet was… Terrifying. Suddenly she felt her chest chilling and she could hear Isabella’s heart starting to race, as the witch realised what they had done. As they both understood to an instinctual, gut level how much of a dread a vampire that could move with absolute quietness was.

‘We are dead,’ Marion realised, with her main regret being dragging Isabella with her. The witch deserved a better end than two seconds of feeling cold hands grabbing her chin before her neck was snapped, and then oblivion. And that was what waited for her. Or perhaps Skye would use her dagger to slice their throat. For Marion, she would need to pierce her heart, she assumed. She had never been given a full course on the limits of her immortality, but the stake through the heart thing, which she had no idea if it was myth or reality, resonated deeply with her.

The oppressive silence paired with the certainty of Skye’s presence was a terror of indescribable form. It was an amorphous, shapeless fear that crept from every dark corner of the room and from Marion’s own mind. For all intents and purposes, her enemy was a spectre of death, silence made into a blade. And that was terrifying.

And then, suddenly, there was a sound across the room, a sudden and abrupt burst of hot air with a roar that was both loud and muffled as flames erupted from their right. They turned towards that space in which Isabella had hidden the summoning circle under the carpet, and while that was exactly what they had expected to happen, Marion was still shocked that it had worked. The trap burned in a circle and as the flames illuminated everything clearly, in the centre of it Marion could see the mirrored indentation of boots pressing down onto the carpet.

“A-ha! I told you it would work,” Isabella said triumphantly, jumping up to her feet.

Marion stood up as well, but she placed a hand on the witch's shoulder and squeezed. Wordless warning for her not to tempt fate by taking a victory lap or bragging too loudly. Fate was capricious and eager to prove one wrong, Marion knew. And besides that, if Skye was indeed standing in that circle, it would be counterproductive to their means to antagonise her.

“Skye?” she called, with some hesitation, as she stepped forward. “We just want to talk… So, you can reveal yourself.”

The nothing within the circle remained still and silent but Marion focused her eyes on it. If Skye wasn’t captured there, if she somehow failed to be caught in the trap, this was it, these were the final seconds of her life. But she would not spend them cowering, so she tried to hold the gaze of something she couldn’t even be sure was where she thought it might be.

And then, from within the flames, the tall imposing figure bathed in orange light emerged. She came into view as if she was dropping a cloak, head first, then shoulders and then everything else, in a matter of a second or less. She was wearing a black wool turtle neck under a trench coat, and she had a visible black leather harness under her relatively small breasts, the type that might be connected to an underarm holster. Marion hoped she didn’t have guns with her, because if so, the circle would be useless.

“Oh fuck…” Isabella said in sudden surprise and with a note of fear in her voice as she took half a step back. “She’s big.”

Skye furrowed her brow and her eyes looked at Marion with cold rage. She had humiliated the hunter twice now. Skye surely must be ready to kill her. If that bargain didn’t work, then she would need to decide between destroying the captive vampire, if they even could, or being destroyed herself. And then she noticed the glistening steel of the stiletto knife in Skye’s hand. One precise throw and she could take out Isabella. And then what would happen to the magic? Would it end? Or did a spell survive beyond the life of the one to cast it? Maybe that was something Marion should’ve asked. If killing Isabella ended the power of the circle, then Marion would surely follow. She could not hope to beat Skye alone.

The tall vampire finally broke the silence with a tone of pure disdain:

“You want to talk, Marion?” She sighed while she sheathed her dagger into a scabbard concealed within her trench coat. “Then let’s talk.”

‘Holy shit,’ Marion thought, ‘it’s working’. The vampire in the cat-ear hoodie had to take a moment to deal with her surprise that their plan had worked so far. She realised that her own surprise was a bad sign; why had she gone through with such a suicidal plan if she had so little fate in it working? That was probably something she should look into when she wasn’t constantly in survival mode.

“You are hunting me for killing someone that I did not kill. I didn’t kill anyone, ever,” Marion said.

“I’m not hunting you because you killed some mortal, girl. I’m hunting you because you’ve poached. That’s a breach of the Prince’s peace.”

“I… Poached?”

“You hunted and killed mortals in another bloodline’s turf.”

Marion lifted an eyebrow at that accusation. Of course, Skye was wrong, she had not killed anyone, but the issue apparently wasn’t the murder or lack thereof, but where she did her hunting. She remembered the game she witnessed, with Logan playing the narrator and how the group seemed concerned that one of them had accidentally killed a runaway girl in a bus station when the dice decided they failed to control their bloodlust. It wasn’t about the death of the girl. It was all turf.

“I’ve killed no one,” Marion insisted.

Skye was visibly uncomfortable surrounded by flames, and Marion had no interest in making the woman further enraged. But asking Isabella to end the fire might also end the spell binding Skye in place. And they were far from a place where Marion would be comfortable doing that. The tall vampire looked with scepticism towards Marion.

“So you’ve said.”

“It is the truth. And if there’s a dead body out there, that means your poacher is someone else,” Marion said. “If you take me captive, and this still happens… It will look as if you were seeking a scapegoat, rather than doing your job.”

Skye stiffened at those words, and as good as she was being invisible, she wasn’t good at hiding her emotions. She cared about her job, her task, and she did so deeply. That, Marion realised, was the angle she had to use.

Isabella in the meantime had her arms folded in front of her and merely watched the back and forth without speaking. It was rare for the witch not to weigh in on something, but perhaps she was now acutely aware that she was the only mortal in a room with two creatures that regularly preyed on people like her, that could harm her, even kill her, if they wished. Marion took a step aside to place herself even more in front of Isabella, shielding her from any sudden burst of aggression from Skye.

“You know nothing about me and my task, girl. Do well to remember that,” the tall vampire said simply.

Marion looked up to Skye’s eyes and found them steely and cold, staring at her with calculation. The smaller vampire decided to offer a concession.

“I don’t. That’s why I summoned you here…”

“You didn’t summon me, I was told you were here by a…” Skye began, harshly, before she tilted her head and looked towards Isabella and the vestiges of a ritual. “Ah. I see.”

“Exactly,” Marion continued, “I summoned you here because I don’t know about your task. But I believe the best way for me to continue to live my life without fear of you descending upon me to capture or kill me… Will be to help you find out whoever you are looking for.”

“If such quarry has eluded me, I fail to see how you could render any aid in its capture, girl. No offence is meant, but your hunting skills are…”

“Kind of pathetic?” Marion said in bitter self-loathing humour, “I know. But I still have you trapped here, don’t I?”

“By virtue of sorcery and luck, fool yourself not,” Skye said almost as if spitting, full of disdain.

“Correct,” Marion continued, “and I’m offering you that sorcery and luck… At the service of your hunt.”

Skye was surprised. And so was Isabella. She tilted her head and moved to stand by Marion’s side, rather than behind her, to turn to the girl so she would face her.

“Marion, what are you offering?”

“I’m offering us,” Marion said, without taking her eyes off Skye. “I’m offering us both, to help you find whoever is the true killer, to work with you, Skye.”

“And in return?”

“You leave me, Isabella and anyone connected to me alone.”

“You still must report to the Prince if you are to live in his domain, this is our way. This is the law of the Court,” Skye said.

“I haven’t, for decades…” Marion said, “I have no desire to get involved with the Courts.”

“Desire or not, it is our way,” Skye repeated herself without much emotion or inflexion.

“I…”

Marion started to feel her chest aching. She knew what it would mean, to make herself known to the ‘Courts’. It wouldn’t be long before Mother heard about her. It wouldn’t be long until she would show up to drag her back. She clenched her fists. Perhaps this had been foolish and there was no deal to be struck. Perhaps she would just need to destroy the other vampire and flee the city right after. Not even say goodbye to Logan, as that would put her in danger. And the thought of it caused her chest ache to grow more intense, her ribs felt like they were turning into constricting vines around her heart and she felt herself giving shallow, quick breaths without even having the need for them. Her head was heavy, the world was spinning.

“Marion… Marion!” Isabella called, placing a hand on her shoulder.

“I won’t go to the Courts…” Marion said, towards neither of them, or both.

She meant to sound decided and firm, but her voice came across as weak, pathetic. She hated it. She hated her weakness, her vulnerability. And she hated showing it in front of the witch and the tall vampire.

And then the flames flickered on the spell. Marion saw as they waned and Skye’s feet moved. And she shuddered. Her panic grew and she knew they were done for. Isabella knew it too, stepping back from Skye as the circle of fire came undone, and raising her fists as if expecting to punch the tall vampire into submission once she attacked. Marion felt her breath, the breathing that she didn’t need, rising, until she was gasping. She was paralysed, and Skye was out of the circle. With a single stride, she cleared the distance between her and Marion, with the smaller vampire trying to take a step back, but ending up taking only half and then folding over to clutch her chest and feel the aching beat of her heart. The idea of being returned to Mother, or killed, flaring in her mind. The things she had seen. The things she had done. The things she would need to do. It was that, or oblivion. And oblivion seemed more merciful to her now.

Isabella moved towards Skye, as she reached for Marion. Trying to foolishly put herself between the two without the use of magic.

“Get back fr-“ she began before Skye's hand extended to shove her back.

There was no force to the shove, just enough to put the witch out of arms reach, as she stumbled backwards, and Skye moved towards the hunching and very vulnerable Marion, reaching with her arms out, to take her by the shoulders. Marion was prepared to be subdued. She would welcome being knocked out, as at least the pain and fear ripping through her would cease. She closed her eyes tight.

And then she felt those large arms squeeze around her shoulders and pull her close. And the smell of Skye, the scent of mortal blood, rain, leather and incense, clung to her nostrils as the woman held her close for a moment. And the shock of it was enough to pull the breaks on Marion’s panic attack for a moment. And that was when Skye pulled her arms back and said something in a language that Marion didn’t understand.

“W-what?”

“That which no longer serves you, cast it aside,” she translated.

“I don’t understand.”

“Someone said it to me once,” Skye said, deadpan.

And then she broke from the embrace and closed her eyes, seeming displeased with what she was about to say, but as a stunned Isabella watched the scene, she uttered:

“What if the Courts never find out about you, just the Prince?”

“But you said…”

“It’s the Prince’s domain, no one else’s. He has to know… But it can be him alone,” Skye said.

Marion felt herself coming back from that spiral. Him alone? Perhaps the Prince would keep her secret. Perhaps Mother had not to know she was alive. Perhaps she could come back from this.

“So… If I help you, you will leave me and mine alone?”

“Yes,” Skye said. “After your introduction to my sovereign.”

Marion nodded, agreeing, as she felt Skye's long and thin hands squeezing her shoulders before the tall vampire stood up.

“Then we have reached an accord. Now, would access to the body of one of the victims aid in tracking down the poacher?”

“…I t-think?” Isabella muttered, confused as to what had just transpired.

Marion didn’t blame her. She was rather confused herself.

“We should get going, then.”

“Going? Where…?” Isabella asked.

“To the Fridge,” Skye said, with purposeful determination rising in her tone. “And to catch us some prey.”

Marion looked up to Skye and part of her couldn’t help but feel a vague sense of admiration and fear both. And then as the vampire turned around and began to walk back, skipping over the other binding circles, she heard Isabella mutter.

“Holy shit… Are we in a murder investigation with a vampire?”

“Seems that way,” Marion added.

Holy shit, indeed.